Snickers Won the Lottery with the “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” Campaign

In 2009, when snickers experienced a decline in their household penetration and volumes sale, Mars, Inc. decided to create an awareness campaign. The “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign was created by BBDO New York to promote Snickers. The Snickers brand has always targeted male 18 to 49 with their campaigns. That’s the primary reason Snickers has a long partnership with the National Football League (NFL).

BBDO, The Genius

Since BBDO agency knew its targeted market, which is men 18-49, will be watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, February 7, 2010. The agency launched the campaign “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” with the Betty White commercial during the 2010 Super Bowl.  Two weeks before the Super Bowl, the agency created a teaser campaign. The excitement surrounding the campaign grew, generating an impressive amount of earned media and press, including millions of incremental and unpaid media impressions, online views and a massive 18,000% in searches for the snickers brand on Google and YouTube. The agency was able to create the awareness it wanted.

 The Right Medium

The campaign became an instant hit because it was delivered to the right media. The Super Bowl audience is 66% male and 34% female. The agency delivers on its targeted audience because according to Nielsen the Super Bowl XLIV 2010 posted a 45.0 HH rating, with a 68 share. The average audience of 106.476 million viewers eclipsed the final episode of M*A*S*H* to become the most-watched TV show ever.  It was also the highest rated program of the year in the following categories: Households (45.0); Men age 18-34 (37.6); Men 18-49 (42.1); Men 25-54 (44.6); Adults 18-34 (35.5); Adults 18-49 (38.6); Adults 25-54 (40.5). Median age of Super Bowl viewers: 43. Media played a huge factor by exposing that amount of people for the debut of the campaign and TV is the reach media by excellence.

Snickers Won the Powerball

This campaign won the Powerball. According to Adage, New York times, the campaign was really successful for the snickers brand. After only three months of the campaign in market, the brand not only reversed declining volume sales, but experienced franchise volume sales growth driven by singles gains that surpassed the objectives of 3% and 5% and grew at more than 2x the category. In addition to the results detailed above with regards to the volume sales and penetration, after five months in market the “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” work had also already increased relevance among a mass audience, surpassing ads from the previous campaign.